Roger Neel, Chief Technology Officer and Founder of Mavenlink a leading cloud-based application for project management and resource planning joins Enterprise Radio to focus on a new study that shines light on the growing services industry and the future of work.

Can you start by telling us more about Mavenlink? For our listeners who don’t know, what does Mavenlink do and who is it used by?

Can you tell us about the State of Services Economy report that Mavenlink recently released and how it all came together?

In the report, it states that, “78.3% of service leaders state business conditions are changing quickly, and 20% of those stated faster than ever before. Why is this more so in the services industry? What are the key drivers of change in services?

You also say in the report, “85% of service businesses are a majority of project-based work; 89% are trending towards more project-based work”, what is the driver here – clients, speed of work, or a need for more transparency in business models? How do you balance non-billable time associated with new business in this scenario?

85% of respondents in your survey also stated that in the last 12 months, they have expanded to offer an increasing variety of services. More than ⅔ said its clients asking them to expand in their services offering. Can you comment on the shift from product-driven economy that offer services, to now a services-economy that offers products? How does this complicate services delivery? What’s driving the new client demands?

Let’s talk about the rise of the services supply chain that you cover off in the report, 96% of those surveyed said they are actively seeking new relationships with on-demand workforce (subcontractors, freelancers, etc) and 36.3% of respondents said they had to turn down work last year because of lack of adequate resources. What does the services supply chain mean to you? How is it different or what analogies are there to the manufacturing supply chain?

Another data point in the report touches on the role of hyperspecialization. 35% of respondents said the primary driver for working with on-demand workers is access to specialized skills that the full-time/in house team does not have. Let’s talk about hyperspecialization. What does it mean to you? Why are services impacted by this trend?

Can you tell us why this report matters?

What is your vision or view of what the future of services looks like?

A software expert with over 12 years in the industry, Roger Neel is an advocate for technology solutions that deliver business value. He brings expertise and best practices insight across industries in the areas of content management, knowledge management, and social networking applications. As CTO, Roger directs the product and engineering decisions of Mavenlink.

An accomplished web app designer, Ruby on Rails engineer, and thought leader in agile software development, Roger has worked with and advised a range of companies: from newly-formed startups to nationally recognized products and brands such as Apple, 3M, and Bank of America. He helped advise new product development and engineering while part of the Sales and Partners team for integrated knowledge management platform InQuira (acquired by Oracle in 2011), where he met fellow Mavenlink co-founders Ray Grainger and Sean Crafts.

Outside of leading the Mavenlink engineering team, Roger dedicates his time to mentoring startup founders and software developers. He is passionate about sharing his insight and advice with others when it comes to navigating the critical cross-section between business and technology. He was an early adopter and an advocate for the Lean Startup movement and pair programming principles. Roger carries a B.A. in Computer Science and Economics from Cornell University.